Community policing and leadership: Perceptions of urban police chiefs

Statement of the Problem. This study investigated police chiefs' understandings of the organizational characteristics of interdependence and adaptation as they related to the societal environment and the police and community as one entity. The exploration of the extent to which these police chiefs understood how collaborative leadership related to the interdependent elements of community and policing was designed to shed light on the problem of implementing community policing.;Procedures and Methods. A qualitative research design was used to explore this study's research questions. The participants were five current California police chiefs from urban police departments. Data sources for this study included semi-structured interviews, copies of documents from their departments that they used and believed were relevant to community policing and completed participant background questionnaires.;Complexity theory was used as a methodology. Its strength was in its potential to best explain how and why community policing and leadership trends occurred. In particular, this complexity science-influenced methodology helped expose historical and political contexts and appeared to be better suited than a linear quantitative process in understanding organizations and social phenomena as those of human relationships.